Having selected his six wildcards on Monday, Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald could now do with a massive fortnight from his team in order to avoid the awkwardness of one of the also-rans winning a massive DP World Tour event.

There are fair reasons why the Irish Open and the BMW PGA Championship are left out of calculations, but it would still be difficult to justify the omission of say Marco Penge were he to capture either title. In fairness, it probably is only Penge who applies this week, but at Wentworth there will be other results Europe would like to avoid and that's one of the things Donald can't control as he prepares for the enormous task of winning in New York.

Thankfully, he's got Rory McIlroy and two other members of the team batting for him at the K Club and this really is a course made for McIlroy in particular. Long enough and with that tree-lined definition he's always enjoyed, the North allows McIlroy to attack four par-fives and reduce plenty of the testing par-fours to a wedge should he be at anything like his best off the tee, which he was when winning here nine years ago, as he was last time out.

And while his return in 2023 didn't quite go to plan as he faded on Sunday, McIlroy was nursing a back problem at the time, his focus very much on being fit for Rome. Two years on and having just been a step below where he'd like to be in the 10 tournaments he's played since winning the Masters, I think he'll consider this a big fortnight, one with the same goal but none of the fitness concerns he had when trailing home behind Vincent Norrman.

Norrman has a similar game to McIlroy's in that he's long and pretty straight off the tee for one of such power, and driving it well will surely be vital this week. Every member of the top 15 did that last time they were at the K Club and those ranked first, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth were all T12 or better, which Sami Valimaki (sixth) would surely have been but for one of the worst putting performances of his career.

With Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton both below their best lately, McIlroy is a very fair price at 4/1. That pretty much exactly reflects his strike-rate on the DP World Tour over the past three years and all four of his victories during this period featured greater strength just below him in the betting, as did the Scottish Open where he was runner-up in July.

He does though arrive off a shoddy putting display and as someone who wants absolutely everything to appear lined up to be betting at short prices in this sport, I'll chance McIlroy's protege TOM MCKIBBIN upstaging him.

McKibbin and McIlroy shared a wonderful embrace after the final hole of the 2024 season after the former had narrowly earned himself PGA Tour status, which he later gave up by joining LIV Golf to sign for Jon Rahm's team.

Financially, that decision has paid off as it was always going to, and last week he took his individual prize money past $5million after helping secure the team title. He played a key role in that, too, pairing with Caleb Surratt for a couple of pairs wins and then shooting 65 in the final, where all four scores count.